Questo sito non supporta completamente il tuo browser. Ti consigliamo di utilizzare Edge, Chrome, Safari o Firefox.

Final Run

There’s a lot going on in Yvonne Rainer’s “Hellzapoppin’ What about the bees?” performed by eight dance artists and actress Kathleen Chalfant as special guest. A founding member of Judson Dance Theater, writer, and experimental filmmaker, Rainer’s wit and breadth spans several mediums in her newest work. At 87, with two Guggenheims and the MacArthur Fellowship under her belt, Rainer claims this show is her finale.

Performance

“Hellzapoppin’ What about the bees?” by Yvonne Rainer. Presented and produced by Performa with New York Live Arts

Place

New York Live Arts, New York, NY, October 5-8, 2022

Words

Karen Hildebrand

Brittany Engel-Adams in Yvonne Rainer's “Hellzapoppin' What about the bees?” Photograph by Maria Baranova

subscribe to the latest in dance


“Uncommonly intelligent, substantial coverage.”

Your weekly source for world-class dance reviews, interviews, articles, and more.

Already a paid subscriber? Login

Co-presented with Performa, “Hellzapoppin’” begins with two video clips played side by side: the original film Hellzapoppin’ (1941), with Frankie Manning’s Lindy Hop choreography, is paired with a boys’ boarding school pillow fight scene from Jean Vigo’s Zero for Conduct (1933). Once the stage lights come up on the live dancers, it becomes apparent Lindy Hop is also their subject. But where the Lindy Hoppers of the film bounce, grin, and fly in a party of a dance, Rainer’s ensemble is doing a walk-through version. They take signature Lindy moves apart at the seams to reveal the performance mechanics that lay beneath. (Pat Catterson is credited for providing jitterbug research.) At this slow pace, we find new appreciation for a shoulder twitch, the way a leg stretched out with a flexed ankle can rock the body backward. Performing in two clusters of four on opposite sides of the stage, the dancers repeatedly take care to set up flips, walkovers, and other spring action partnering. Without velocity as an assist, it takes a team to accomplish what one Lindy Hopping couple makes appear as effortless.


Brittany Bailey, Vincent McCloskey, Patricia Hoffbauer, David Thomson (lifted) in “Hellzapoppin' What about the bees?” by Yvonne Rainer. Photograph by Yvonne Rainer

While Frankie Manning’s dancers are all Black, Rainer’s ensemble is mostly White, which underlines the central statement of “Hellzapoppin.’” Black dancer David Thomson in pre-recorded voice-over reads a script as the character of Apollo Musagetes. Written by Rainer, a White woman, it’s a biting commentary on racism in the United States, delivered with deceptively warm intonation: statistics of racial inequality, an anecdote about a White woman who cluelessly insults a coworker of color, quotes from the poet Terrence Hayes, comedian Tracy Morgan, James Baldwin and more. At just the moment when one might question the wisdom of proposing that a Greek god from Mount Olympus, where he notes there are no people of color, might chastise a progressive New York City audience about race, out jumps a White woman (played by Chalfant) from said audience to indignantly demand of the performers, “What about the bees?” followed by “Why aren’t you dealing with Roe v Wade”? and a litany of other urgent issues not being addressed in the show. It’s a goofy moment that allows Rainer a cameo as she enters to calm the outraged woman with, “Come and sit down, we can talk about this later.”

David Thomson, Brittany Bailey, Patricia Hoffbauer, Vincent McCloskey in “Hellzapoppin' What about the bees?” by Yvonne Rainer. Photograph by Maria Baranova

Another nice surprise is when the dancers switch from a crouched, ready to spring Lindy posture, to the upright spine of ballet in a rendition of Fokine’s “The Dying Swan.” Suddenly, the lithe Brittany Engels-Adams is fluttering her arms like a bird. This “Dying Swan” sample refers me back to the earlier screening of “After Many a Summer Dies the Swan: Hybrid,” Rainer’s 2002 collaboration with White Oak Dance that shares the “Hellzapoppin” program bill. It’s an example of a doubling effect that serves to hold together otherwise disparate elements of the production—throughout the evening there are always two activities happening onstage simultaneously, such as two film clips, two clusters of dancers.

Brittany Engel-Adams, Emmanuèle Phuon, Timothy Ward, Emily Coates in “Hellzapoppin' What about the bees?” by Yvonne Rainer. Photograph by Maria Baranova

Other unrelated features also have elements that mirror each other, like when we see Emily Coates performing in both the video from 20 years ago, and live today onstage. The boarding school pillow fight too is an echo. Pillows make an appearance in the White Oak Dance choreography and Rainer has famously made use of pillows in her Judson-era work. That the video title is a literary reference (both a Tennyson poem and an Aldous Huxley novel) speaks to the way Rainer juggles multiple influences together. The evening ends with a passage from Joyce’s Ulysses, recited by a spotlight encircled Chalfant, next to a video screen image of a cresting ocean wave. Unclear what to make of this ending, we might look to Rainer’s compositional pattern as a possible lens: two balls in play at once, always offering a choice of where to look. The crowd gave her a standing ovation.

Karen Hildebrand


Karen Hildebrand is former editorial director for Dance Magazine and served as editor in chief for Dance Teacher for a decade. An advocate for dance education, she was honored with the Dance Teacher Award in 2020. She follows in the tradition of dance writers who are also poets (Edwin Denby, Jack Anderson), with poetry published in many literary journals and in her book, Crossing Pleasure Avenue (Indolent Books). She holds an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. Originally from Colorado, she lives in Brooklyn.

comments

Featured

Lists of Promise
REVIEWS | Karen Greenspan

Lists of Promise

“Lists of Promise,” a new work currently in a two-week run from March 13- 30 at the East Village cultural landmark, Theater for the New City, promised more than it delivered, at least for now.

Continua a leggere
Heady Notions
REVIEWS | Karen Hildebrand

Heady Notions

“State of Heads” opens with a blaze of white light and loud clanking onto a white-suited Levi Gonzalez, part Elvis, part televangelist addressing his congregation. A pair of women sidle in—Rebecca Cyr and Donna Uchizono—dressed in ankle-length white dresses and cowered posture.

Continua a leggere
Winning Works
REVIEWS | Róisín O'Brien

Winning Works

The late John Ashford, a pioneer in programming emerging contemporary choreographers across Europe, once told me that he could tell what sort of choreographer a young artist would turn into when watching their first creations.

Continua a leggere
Ballet at 41° South
REVIEWS | Leila Lois

Ballet at 41° South

Last weekend, the Royal New Zealand Ballet hosted two nights of performance in collaboration with the Scottish Ballet at the St. James’ Theatre in Wellington, New Zealand. The bill included two works by choreographers affiliated with Scottish Ballet, and two by RNZB choreographers. There was welcome contrast in timbre and tempo, and common themes of self-actualisation and connection, through a love of dance. As RNZB artistic director Ty King-Wall announced in the audience address, the two-night only performance was in the spirit of “bringing the companies together in mutual admiration and respect.”

Continua a leggere
Good Subscription Agency